This page was created by Collin Hardwick.
Arola, “Composing as Culturing: An American Indian Approach to Digital Ethics”
DISCIPLINE / FIELD: Rhetoric, Writing Studies, Computers & Writing, Digital Humanities
YEAR: 2018
MAIN ARGUMENTS & CONCEPTS
Arola connects Indigenous making to questions of authenticity inside & outside the classroom, and to digital composition practices. Arola connects her observations during a regalia-making gathering with composition and English studies, where questions of ‘authentic’ authorship are often simplified: either open-source ‘remix’ is celebrated, or plagiarism is monitored and criminalized.Instead of this simplistic view, Arola calls on Indigenous epistemologies to reframe compositions, acknowledging that “there is no authentic self who produces original works, instead there are writers who exist in relation to one another, draw from one another, and produce within ecologies of meaning” (280). While remix culture looks like it challenges traditional ideas of ownership, it still embraces the lone genius myth.
QUOTES
“She would see herself as part of a network in which all things (including texts) are alive and in process, everything is related, all relationships are historical, and space and time determine the nature of relationships (Deloria, 1999), In this space, no writer or remixer is a lone genius, but instead exists in space and time and creates texts that work to solve problems, extend ideas and further culture” (281).NOTES
Arola’s discussion of “remix” culture reminded me of the Gallon article from 560, where she writes that the construction of the digital humanities should review to premise of humanities in general, “recovering alternate constructions of humanity that have been historically excluded from that concept.” I’ve definitely heard about remix quite a bit, especially from DH-minded English scholars, but this was the first time that I heard a criticism about it’s reliance on the myth of the lone author. I think it can be easy to think that anything digital is inherently novel, but it’s clear that it’s easy to move questionable premises into digital media.Overall, I think this article provides really interesting insights into the concept of ‘intellectual property’ (which actually is quite relevant to my main research questions right now), and is applicable to pedagogy & course design, both in composition and DTC classes.
RELATED
Arola, “The Design of Web 2.0: The Rise of the Template, The Fall of Design.”Gallon, “Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities.”
